Knowledge Base

A website hosted in Plesk is not accessible: open_basedir restriction in effect

Symptoms

A website is not accessible with one of the following errors in a web browser:

404 file not found

500 external Server Error

Error 500 move_uploaded_file(): open_basedir restriction in effect. File(/path/to/the/directory) is not within the allowed path(s): (/var/www/vhosts/example.com/:/tmp/)

No input file specified.
The following error message appears in the domain's Logs page (Domains > example.com > Logs):

<...> open_basedir restriction in effect. File(/path/to/the/directory) is not within the allowed path(s) <...>

Uncaught Exception: Session: Configured save path '/path/to/the/directory' is not a directory, doesn't exist or cannot be created.

Cause

The PHP script is trying to access the folder for which access is not allowed. This restriction is defined by the PHP open_basedir variable for each domain separately. By default, open_basedir allows access to the tmp and domain's document root directories, as well as the system's default sessions path.

Resolution

Log in to Plesk.
Go to Domains > example.com > PHP Settings.
Add the path from the error message to the open_basedir field:
- on Linux
  
  Below is an example for the directory /path/to/the/directory:
  
  {WEBSPACEROOT}{/}{:}{TMP}{/}{:}/path/to/the/directory
- on Windows
  
  Below is an example for the directory E:pathtothedirectory:
  
  {WEBSPACEROOT}{/};{TMP};{/};"E:pathtothedirectory"
Apply the changes.

Note: The default session.save_path for Linux is (RedHat-based) /var/lib/php/session/ or (Debian-based) /var/lib/php/sessions/, and for Windows is C:WindowsTemp